But as Mel herself likes to say, these are "Bad girls doin' good." Saturday night, for instance, 10 of them enlisted for a $60-per-person limousine scavenger hunt for the local Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. And that's small change.

In the past three years, the Bad Girls have raised close to $30,000 for local charities. They've helped struggling families, those with AIDS and women with breast cancer.

"Mel" is Mel Taylor, an on-air personality for rock station WJRR-FM, a high-octane 31-year-old who started the club in 2007 to indulge her own passion for volunteerism — and now has 100 members.

The key to her Bad Girls' success is one familiar to a growing number of groups whose lone mission is to raise money and awareness for nonprofits: They're putting the "fun" back in fundraising.

Two weeks ago, the club officially became a nonprofit itself, complete with a board of directors and members of all ages and both sexes. It will host four major fundraising events this year, including a golf tournament expected to bring in upwards of $20,000 for B.A.S.E. Camp Children's Cancer Foundation.

"At first I thought it would be just, like, 10 of my girlfriends and I doing random fundraising walks or something," Taylor said. "But then we decided to hold our first meeting, and 30 people showed up."

Margaret Linnane, executive director of the Rollins College Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership Center, said such efforts are essentially event-oriented versions of a giving circle. "They see that, 'Hey, we can get together and all have a good time and do something really good while we're at it.' Some are more formal than others, some put more thought into where the money goes than others, but there's not really a downside."

Consider Guys With Ties, an Orlando nonprofit founded in 2005 by eight professional men — all friends from high school and college — in their 20s. It sprouted from an annual Halloween house party that became so popular it outgrew its venue.

"We thought, 'Why don't we host parties and raise money for charity?' " said Ryan Deming, now 34, an Orlando entrepreneur. "Our first event, we had no idea how many people would come out. This was before Facebook and other social media, so it was just word of mouth."

More than 800 people turned out. Since then, Guys With Ties has raised more than $125,000 for charities from the Orlando Union Rescue Mission, a shelter for the homeless, to Harbor House of Central Florida, which helps victims of domestic violence. Other beneficiaries include the Victim Service Center, Special Olympics and Autism Speaks.

"It's all volunteer, so there's no overhead," Deming said. "All the charity has to do is be there for the check presentation at the end."

If it sounds like a sweet deal for the charities, it is. Special events can be expensive and time-consuming to orchestrate. And at a time when the recession has claimed a substantial number of charities' would-be donors, these events often draw from a demographic that might not otherwise give to a nonprofit.

"These are folks who want to have a good time — and someone else will make the decision about where the money goes," Linnane said.

Indeed, the Guys With Ties events have become legendary for their fun factor. Like Mel's Bad Girls, they put on four parties per year — including last weekend's White Party, where everyone wears white. It raised more than $10,000 for My Healing Harmony, a music program for kids at Arnold Palmer Hospital. Next up is the Costumes for a Cause for Halloween, followed by Hope for the Holidays, a pre-Christmas toy drive. There's also a bash each spring with varying themes. And the group's e-mail list now goes out to 7,000 people.

"When people find out it's an all-volunteer basis and that we have not taken a single cent, it makes it even more popular," said Andrew Svoboda, president of the board and a project manager for an architectural firm. "But it is a lot of work."

Deming admitted: "It feels like a second job sometimes."

The guys also volunteer to help run the Special Olympics Games and have mentored boys in a program designed to prevent domestic violence.

At the outset, they were inspired by a Tampa group called the 13 Ugly Men Foundation — yet another collaboration of young, high-powered party-givers who (the allegedly ugly men admit) wanted to attract hot girls. Current president Lance Ponton, a 31-year-old commercial real-estate appraiser, already was spending a couple grand of his own money to throw parties on his condo building's rooftop before he and his friends hit on the charity idea.

"It's actually a lot more fun," Ponton said. "Because we have so many volunteers, it gives me more time to socialize rather than running around taking care of everything. I've met a lot more people."